If we allow his comments to stand, homosexuals and blacks will be subject to the oppression of a rich redneck saying offensive things. On the other hand, if we allow him to be kicked off the show it is a clear signal that Christians must abandon their religious beliefs or face the full wrath of A&E.

Clearly the only rational path forward is to permanently ban all reality TV.

I love the fact that the "National Council for Freedom and Enterprise" wants to force a business to employ someone on political grounds, someone who potentially hurts that company's business. FREE MARKET SOLUTIONS!

So, the 3 seasons of him ending every episode by saying grace ("in Jesus' name we pray"), is that the "silencing Christianity" part; or is it only once he started spewing the Gospel According to Saint Bastard that A&E was silencing the One True Faith?

mayIFark:YodaTuna: jjorsett: The guy not only thought impermissible thoughts, he uttered them out loud. Where others could hear. We can't have that.

Weird, no one arrested him. What I'm getting here is that you don't understand the 1st amendment. It's fine, you wouldn't be the first to do so in this ridiculous argument.

People do. All you have to do is change the subject in question. Its been compared many times (for being the most recent two), but it's worth repeating. If you change Pat Robertson with Martin Bashir you will see how 1st amendment does not apply.

Well, yeah, but I think you're forgetting that liberals and further more such as.

Rascal King:The guy claimed that black people were happier under Jim Crow laws, so naturally compare him to Rosa Parks. This is really just about a segment of the population freaking out because their racism and bigotry is starting to have major consequences.

Conservatives: "How DARE you judge us by the content of our character, when you can plainly tell by our being white Christians that we're good people?"

MyrnaMinkoff:I grew up in rural Oklahoma. I'm here visiting again. Many of my Facebook friends are from this region. Judging by my feed, you'd think this is the only new story of note from the last several months."Real" America is depressing, but absolutely not surprising. One of them posted about boycotting Cracker Barrel since they pulled merchandise, and then complained but the food is "too expensive" anyway. Jesus Christ.

If a major decision in your life is that you have decided you no longer want to eat at Cracker Barrel, you may want to re-evaluate your worldview.

Why would the Puritans found this country if not to get away from thoughts of anuses? People wouldn't keep making controversial statements like this if the gays would just stop being gay. Is it easier for a few to change or many? Study it out. Exactly.

FoxKelfonne:Sigh.... can we just like, start calling these people "Republican Christians" or some other name so they can stop making actual Christians look bad? I mean, given Jesus' stance on a lot of things in the bible, I would imagine that he would totally not be down with persecuting anyone. (Except maybe money changers)

/Going to start my own religion with two major rules:// Don't be a dick and mind your own business.

Sorry. If the discussion of Muslims has taught me anything, unless all Christians stand up and repudiate the extremists in their bunch, then this is their fault.

Someone's going to have to explain that to me, then. When he is literally following his Bible - saying grace before meals, praying in his prophet's name, etc - A&E had no problems. Only when he went "off-book" did they object, and he still hasn't even been fired.

// so someone tell me now how gay is the worst thing in the Bible, despite being mentioned twice - as often as the commandment that you must send away a mother bird before you may collect her eggs

mayIFark:OK, sure. The difference would be that, in the case of DD, they actually make the party they are opposing richer.

I think that's just starting to strike some of these folks. Maybe there's a FW:FW:FW: e-mail enlightening them.

Last night, I went to the Large Corporate Grocery/Household Goods store in my Redneck Oregon mountain town.

In the last couple of days, the store moved all of its DD merchandise to a massive display right inside the front door (up until that point, I thought the DD chia pets were photoshopped jokes -- who knew?).

The shelves were about half-empty. Two couples who didn't appear to know each other were having a heated argument in front of the display.

One couple had about a 1/2-basketful of DD merchandise. The man from the other couple was yelling at him, saying the money went to A&E, so he shouldn't be supporting them. The buyer responded that Phil's family gets the money, too, and that buy wearing the apparel people will know that you stand in support of Phil. The wives just gave each other nasty looks.

As the fight raged, people nervously inspected the goods and occasionally took one from the shelves sheepishly and put it in their basket.

Whodat:Saw this was on the AJC website and was worried until I found out that the moron is from Illinois.

BTW, A&E knew of his beliefs when they hired him. It is hard for them to have any credible outrage this far into it. I wonder how many GLBT's actually watch the show. I would bet that they were/are big in the bear community.

You can know that someone is against homosexuality in principle, and still think that they might not give a lengthy interview in an international magazine talking about vaginas, anuses, and the joy of pre-civil rights blacks in the south. I'm with A&E here.

Further, the A&E brand is bigger than one channel. I guarantee you plenty of gays, lesbians, or allies watch, for instance, Lifetime. Perhaps after review keeping that audience is worth more than a few million "real Americans."

MyrnaMinkoff:glmorrs1: YodaTuna: MyrnaMinkoff: I grew up in rural Oklahoma. I'm here visiting again. Many of my Facebook friends are from this region. Judging by my feed, you'd think this is the only new story of note from the last several months."Real" America is depressing, but absolutely not surprising. One of them posted about boycotting Cracker Barrel since they pulled merchandise, and then complained but the food is "too expensive" anyway. Jesus Christ.

If a major decision in your life is that you have decided you no longer want to eat at Cracker Barrel, you may want to re-evaluate your worldview.

Have you ever tried their country ham or biscuits and gravy? Cause I'm just saying, giving that up would be a major life decision for me.

/I sound fat

HASH BROWN CASSEROLE. But still, arteries.

Ugh, their gravy is awful. The whole point of decent sausage gravy is that you sop it up with your biscuit, then eat them together. Cracker Barrel's gravy just sits there on top of the biscuit like mayo on a ritz cracker, or that embarrassing dinty-moore-beef-stew crap your dog just took on your mother-in-law's new hardwood floors.

I love the fact that the "National Council for Freedom and Enterprise" wants to force a business to employ someone on political grounds, someone who potentially hurts that company's business. FREE MARKET SOLUTIONS!

WQait...just wait...then they'll turn around and say that we should force people to ONLY buy from conservatives...because jeebus.

I'm sure no one is going to argue that a minority can't oppress a majority, but do you really think Christians are oppressed in the United States?

There is a minority of Christianity that is oppressed. You see, when you prevent them from controlling your life and interrupt their 'do as I say, not as I do' attempts to subjugate your free will, you're oppressing them. Americans are promised life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and they won't be happy until everyone is as equally miserable as them. It's like a spiritual Harrison Bergeron.

glmorrs1:YodaTuna: MyrnaMinkoff: I grew up in rural Oklahoma. I'm here visiting again. Many of my Facebook friends are from this region. Judging by my feed, you'd think this is the only new story of note from the last several months."Real" America is depressing, but absolutely not surprising. One of them posted about boycotting Cracker Barrel since they pulled merchandise, and then complained but the food is "too expensive" anyway. Jesus Christ.

If a major decision in your life is that you have decided you no longer want to eat at Cracker Barrel, you may want to re-evaluate your worldview.

Have you ever tried their country ham or biscuits and gravy? Cause I'm just saying, giving that up would be a major life decision for me.

YodaTuna:MyrnaMinkoff: I grew up in rural Oklahoma. I'm here visiting again. Many of my Facebook friends are from this region. Judging by my feed, you'd think this is the only new story of note from the last several months."Real" America is depressing, but absolutely not surprising. One of them posted about boycotting Cracker Barrel since they pulled merchandise, and then complained but the food is "too expensive" anyway. Jesus Christ.

If a major decision in your life is that you have decided you no longer want to eat at Cracker Barrel, you may want to re-evaluate your worldview.

Have you ever tried their country ham or biscuits and gravy? Cause I'm just saying, giving that up would be a major life decision for me.

This is very much likely. It would most likely be done by the supporters of Pat Robertson and the trademark holder (A&E) earning most of the proceedings.

/the lulz in this one would be epic if that really happens

Sort of like the Chik-FIl-A day.

If I recalled correctly, on Chik-Fil-A day, people lined up to buy their sandwiches. Unless they are franchises where the trademark holders does not get a portion of the total sale, I am not sure how they compare.

What? It's really simple.

Chik Fil A makes a statement. People express displeasure. REAL MURKIANS go "DOn't you silence religion!" and swarm in flocks to buy their crap.

YodaTuna:MyrnaMinkoff: I grew up in rural Oklahoma. I'm here visiting again. Many of my Facebook friends are from this region. Judging by my feed, you'd think this is the only new story of note from the last several months."Real" America is depressing, but absolutely not surprising. One of them posted about boycotting Cracker Barrel since they pulled merchandise, and then complained but the food is "too expensive" anyway. Jesus Christ.

If a major decision in your life is that you have decided you no longer want to eat at Cracker Barrel, you may want to re-evaluate your worldview.

glmorrs1:jjorsett: The guy not only thought impermissible thoughts, he uttered them out loud. Where others could hear. We can't have that.

They're not impermissible, they're just backwards, ignorant, and bigoted. He has the right to voice his opinion on this all day every day. And we, and his bosses at A&E, have the right to criticize and naysay his dumbass. See, the first amendment doesn't protect you from criticism, just from being jailed or penalized by the state for what you say.

Now, as I understand it, this may have been impermissible in Canada under their hate speech laws.

/IANAL/Especially in Canada

It's a shame there's no efficient way to look up a troll's posting history, because I'd love to parse all the Dixie Chick threads from a decade ago and see what the chump had to say then.

I grew up in rural Oklahoma. I'm here visiting again. Many of my Facebook friends are from this region. Judging by my feed, you'd think this is the only new story of note from the last several months."Real" America is depressing, but absolutely not surprising. One of them posted about boycotting Cracker Barrel since they pulled merchandise, and then complained but the food is "too expensive" anyway. Jesus Christ.

jjorsett:The guy not only thought impermissible thoughts, he uttered them out loud. Where others could hear. We can't have that.

I know! A guy should have the right to talk at length about his preference for vaginas over anuses in an international magazine, without them icky gays thinking it gives them right to say anything. What makes them people think talking about sexuality is acceptable in America?

I'm pretty sure the real reason this is continuing is because it's a Slow News Week in politics.

This whole thing is Really Simple: You have the right to say whatever the fark you want. However, anyone can say whatever the fark they want in response. Also, any private business can decide do do whatever they want based on your speech. No government entity is allowed to act based on your speech (assuming it is not violent in nature) - this is all the First Amendment protects.

Calling gays goatfarkers, and being called a bigot are the same thing as far as the first amendment rights are concerned. And being offensive on TV and then getting canned is, again, both legal and expected. It's the Hank Williams Jr Monday Night Football thing all over again - be repugnant, get fired for it, deal with it. Freedom of Speech is not Freedom from Consequences.

Also, I find it pretty sad and ironic that the guy who said Blacks were happy under Jim Crow is being compared to Rosa Parks.